Calming the Rush of Panic (13 page)

Now withdraw from choiceless awareness and come back to the breath, feeling your whole body from head to toe to fingertip as you breathe in and out. Feeling the whole of the body rising on an inhalation and falling on an exhalation.

Feeling the body as a whole organism, unified, connected, and whole.

May you again congratulate yourself for practicing this meditation that is a contribution to your health and well-being.

May all beings dwell with peace.

How to Practice Sitting Meditation

Practice sitting meditation once a day. You may want to work with it for the next week and see how it goes. This is the best way to bring it into your life. Make time to do sitting meditation when you can—even a short period of meditation will give you benefit. As mentioned before, find a time that works best for you, and since everyone is different, whatever time you do it is the best time. Let this be a practice you look forward to, a gift to yourself as a way to become more balanced within your body and mind. Feel free to use an alarm clock or timer.

Susan’s Story

Susan lived with panic around the fact that she was getting married soon. We had a few sessions of sitting meditation together, with her being mindful of what was coming up in her body and mind. While meditating she noticed a feeling that she wasn’t good enough, and this caused her to feel anxious. The anxiety at first seemed to settle in her neck and then turned into a huge knot in her belly, and she felt more panicked by it. She continued, however, to be mindful and acknowledged those feelings and let them be to see where they would take her. She began to witness that in time they dissipated and left—without her even intentionally trying to push them away. They seemed to arise on their own and leave on their own—like an uninvited guest, they appeared and then left unannounced. As Susan stayed with this process, she realized how fleeting these panicky mind states were and that she didn’t have to take them on as a permanent truth.

Interestingly enough, as she stayed with the panic, experiencing it coming and going and not identifying with it, she actually had an insight. She remembered that at an early age, she had been criticized about her homework by both her parents and her schoolteacher—it was a double whammy. Susan internalized that all of her original work was not adequate and that she was only okay when her parents or her teacher corrected her work. This of course affected her self-worth and self-esteem. She realized that her panic around getting married was a result of thinking that maybe her husband would find out that she really wasn’t good enough.

After Susan understood what she had done to herself, her self-worth and self-esteem deepened and her panic left. That story of her being unworthy was just a passing mind state and not a definition of who she was. She was becoming at peace with her original and unique self! She did indeed get married, and her marriage flourished.

Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow

We would like to introduce you to another way to informally practice mindfulness, called “Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow.” This is akin to S.T.O.P. (chapter 1) and R.A.I.N. (chapter 2), with a bit of a twist. We feel that it’s important for you to have a number of meditations and mindful practices that you can draw from and work with. We understand that for some of you, one particular meditation or informal practice may be very helpful while another may be less so. Yet bear in mind that things change, so what may not be that useful to you now may be more useful in the future.

“Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow” can help you work through panicky thoughts and events so that you don’t get so deeply caught up in them. You definitely know that getting sucked into panic is not where you want to go. Fortunately you’ve been learning practices to help you get unstuck. “Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow” offers you yet another tool for dealing with panic.

Just as you have been mindful of mind states in sitting meditation, experiencing how they come and go on their own and learning to not take them so personally, you can bring this same perspective into your everyday life. Wherever you are—at the post office, at the bank, at the office, or at home—you can practice dealing with moments of panic as they arise by using “Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow.” When you notice the rush of panic emerging, take a moment to breathe from your belly and
pause
to become present.
Observe and experience
your body sensations, thoughts, and emotions, and then
allow
them to be, giving space for them to go wherever they need to go. See what happens when you bring the practice of “Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow” into a panicky moment.

We would like to invite you to reflect upon the fact that life is indeed made of moments, and although a moment of panic may seem like a thousand years, in actuality it’s not very long. Like all events in the body and mind, whatever arises, passes—for all things are certain to change.

By practicing “Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow,” you can begin to watch the storms of panic come and go and gradually feel less affected by them. You are learning to give space to the storm of panic by not reacting to it. You are learning to pause, observe/experience, and allow the panicky feelings to go wherever they need to go. When you give space to the storm of panic, eventually the storm dissipates.

You will come to see these mind and body states of panic as impersonal formations that are always changing. When you become less reactive and regard these panicky events as transient, you will become not so enslaved by them. In time, you’ll experience deeper levels of freedom and peace.

Practicing “Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow” builds your ability to step back and be with the body and mind. A mountain is a wonderful example from nature that shows us how to live with greater balance and ease. Just as a mountain is steady and grounded in the midst of changing weather day in and day out, you can learn to sit in more balance with the weather systems of your body and mind.

Frank’s Story

Frank, an inventor, had come up with some new medical devices for use in life-saving heart surgery. When he started a business to get these inventions into the hands of doctors, he had to deal with experiencing panic at times. At the office—on his own turf and in control of his environment—he was fine and things went fairly well, but when he had to travel to sell and support the use of his devices, it was another story.

Because he had so much panic, Frank would have liked to have someone else in charge of sales for his business, but he couldn’t afford to hire the right professional just yet, and those who might be interested in helping him didn’t have enough of a technological background. As a result, Frank needed to make sales presentations himself, as well as thoroughly explain to the surgeons how to use his devices, which often meant accompanying them into surgery to consult with them on how best to implant and use them.

Just the thought of walking into the surgery was enough to make Frank’s hands sweaty and his breathing rapid and irregular. He knew that he desperately needed to learn to calm down his panic so that he could successfully market his devices and see them put to good use. The last thing he wanted was to have a full-blown panic attack in the operating room.

Frank became proactive and took a mindfulness class, where he learned various formal meditations and informal practices that helped him a lot. Mindful belly breathing was one of his favorites since it helped him regulate his breath and come back into balance. Frank also related with the notion from sitting meditation that we are not our thoughts, but most of all he connected with “Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow.” This was incredibly helpful for him, in conjunction with mindful breathing in everyday situations. Whenever he thought about going out to see the surgeon or when he was about to go into the operating room, Frank would take a breath in and out to pause. This opened up a space for him to observe in a matter-of-fact way just what he was experiencing physically, mentally, and emotionally. Frank then began to allow and acknowledge what he was feeling and began to let things be. In time, those panicky feelings subsided and dissipated, and Frank felt great relief, release, and happiness by learning how to face and transform his panic.

Applied Practices

Let’s move into some mindful practices for dealing with the rush of panic in your thoughts.

Relax about Social Situations

Say you’ve been invited to a close friend’s party or perhaps an obligatory work-related social gathering. You may desire to go or you may not, but you don’t want to leave the safety of your home. In fact, the very thought of stepping outside your door or being away from home is enough to set off a panic attack. Your mind is racing with jumbled, irrational, and anxious thoughts. Your panic might be further fueled by worrisome and intrusive “what if” thinking, such as
What if I don’t know anyone at the party? What if I have a panic attack when I get there? What if something happens to me on the way to the party?
If the shackle of the fear of being away from home is strong enough, your panic might win out and you may miss out on the gathering.

You don’t have to live this way. The “Pause, Observe/Experience, and Allow” practice will help free you from the clutches of your panic and fearfulness by giving you a new perspective and the space to ride out the storm of panic until it scatters or dissolves.

1. While you’re still at home, or sitting in your car outside of the party, or even during the throes of a panic attack at the party, find a comfortable place to sit, bringing your attention to your posture, and pause. You should be sitting tall, fully supported and alert.
   
2. Begin with a few belly breaths. You might want to put your hand directly on your stomach in order to focus on the rise and fall of this region specifically. After a few breaths, what do you notice about your breathing? Take this mindful time to pause and be with the next three to five breaths.
   
3. Set your intentions for this practice and what you would like to learn from it. You may say aloud or to yourself:
   May this practice help me deepen my self-compassion for my panicky thoughts and feelings. May it open my perspective and free me from this fear. May it give me the strength I need to leave my home and attend this gathering.
   Feel free to make up your own intentions that best suit your situation.
   
4. Again, reconnect with your breath and anchor yourself in the unfolding present moment.
   
5. Observe and experience each panic-ridden thought, feeling, and sensation by simply witnessing whatever crops up, without attaching any value to it. Each time a thought replays itself, simply acknowledge the thought for just what it is, a thought. It might be good or it might be bad—who really can say? Thoughts are just thoughts. Your thoughts say nothing about who you are or how you define your life. Don’t give the thoughts more significance than they deserve.
   
6. As thoughts, feelings, and sensations continue to emerge, notice where they go and what happens to them. Do some thoughts stick around and repeat themselves over and over? Do other thoughts appear and disappear swiftly? Do you find new thoughts and feelings issuing forth and then moving along? You might liken your mental experience to watching cars on a highway, where each thought or feeling is a car. At times, a flood of thoughts and feelings causes gridlock. Later, traffic eases up and fewer thoughts and feelings are on the road. After some time passes, only a few thoughts and feelings remain, speeding along, quickly passing out of sight and out of mind.
   
7. Allow these thoughts and feelings to just be here with you, without judgment or debate. Simply listen, and allow all the responses that reveal themselves. Remember to meet any feelings with compassion and kindness. Offer them mercy and healing. Stay open to the wisdom that may present itself from this reflection.
   

You may find the highway metaphor useful for observing and allowing your panicky moments to run their natural course. May you move gently and enjoy the connections that you make at the party.

Overcome Your Fear of Crowds or Tight Spaces

If you fear crowds and open spaces, then something as ordinary as going to a school, a bank, or even a movie can activate your panic. At the other end of the spectrum is the fear of enclosed spaces, such as a crowded room, bus, airplane, or elevator. Whichever situation you fear, sometimes the greater fear is the fear of having a panic attack in this situation. Panic is often driven by anticipation of what
could
happen. Since you must leave your home at some point, you will likely be confronted with many of these locales, possibly more than one in the same day. You cannot avoid these places, so you live with the dread that what has happened in the past will likely happen again. So what can you do when your panic gets provoked?